SOCRATIC LOVE;

AS IT IS CALLED (1)

ge

How could it be, that a vice, which if neral, would extinguish the human species, an infamous

(1) The very ingenious and learned critics, known by the vulgar name of Monthly Reviewers, have passed a most severe censure upon this whole article. "We conceive, say they, it could only come from "the pen of one of the most inconsiderate, dissolute, " and abandoned of mankind. Nothing can be 66 more infamous than what is there advanced, "in palliation of the most detestable of all crimes." But nothing can be more false, than that our author attempts to palliate this crime. Does not he set out with affirming it to be destructive of the human race, a debasement and violation of nature, and the highest degree of corruption? Is this a palliation? or is it not rather a representation of that infamous vice in the light it deserves. Whether he be mistaken in tracing its source, we cannot pretend to affirm, not being so well acquainted as those learned critics with the practices of the courts of justice, nor with the arts of those hypocritical monsters, hackneyed in the ways of iniquity. But after all, this is a mere point of speculation, not at all tending to immorality. He may be mistaken again, when he says, that the Greeks never authorized this vice, and that the Socratic Love was not infamous. But these are historical matters, concerning which men of very great learning have differed in opinion. Our author, however, thinks the crime so horrid and unnatural, that it could never be authorized by any government; so that, instead of looking on this article of Socratic Love with the same horror as the scrupulous Reviewers, we rather apprehend it

to

infamous crime against nature, should become so natural? It appears to be the last degree of reflective corruption; and yet it is usually found in those who have not had time to be corrupted. It makes its way into novice hearts, who are strangers to ambition, fraud and a thirst after wealth; it is blind youth, which at the end of childhood, by an unaccountable instinct, plunges itself into this enormity.

The inclination of the two sexes for each other declares itself very early; but after all that has been said of the African woman, and those of the southern part of Asia, this propensity is much stronger in man than in' woman. Agreeably to the universal law of nature in all creatures, it is ever the male who makes the first advances. The young males of our species brought up together, coming to feel that play which nature begins to unfold to them, in the want of the natural object of their instinct, betake themselves to a resemblance of such objects.

It is nothing uncommon for a boy by the beauty of his complexion, and the mild sparkle of his eyes for two or three years, to have the look of a pretty girl: now the love of such a boy arises from a mistake in nature; the female sex is honoured in our fondness for what partakes of her beauties, and when such resemblance

to be one of the least exceptionable parts of the whole work. But as Mr. Dryden well observes, much of ill nature and a very little judgment, go far in finding the mistakes of writers.

blance is withered by age, the mistake is at an

end.

citraque juventam

Ætatis breve ver et primos carpere flores.

This mistake in nature is known to be much more common in mild climates than amidst the northern frosts, the blood being there more fervid and the occasion more frequent: accordingly, what seems only a weakness in young Alcibiades, is in a Dutch sailor or a Russian sutler, a loathsome abomination.

I cannot bear that the Greeks should be charged with having authorized this licentiousness. The legislator Solon is brought in because he has said,

"Thou shalt caress a beauteous boy,

"Whilst no beard his smooth chin deforms."

But who will say that Solon was a legislator at the time of his making those two ridiculous lines? He was then young, and when the rake was grown virtuous, it cannot be thought that he inserted such an infamy among the laws of his republic: it is like accusing Theodore de Beza of having preached up pederasty in his church, because, in his youth, he had made verses on young Candidus, and says:

"Amplector hunc et illam."

Plutarch likewise is misunderstood, who, among his rants in the dialogue on love, makes one of the speakers say, that women are not

worthy

worthy of a genuine love; but another speaker keenly takes the women's part.

It is as certain, as the knowledge of antiquity can be, that Socratic love was not an infamous passion. It is the word love has occasioned the mistake. The lovers of a youth were exactly what among us are the minions of our princes, or, formerly the pages of honour; young gen. tlemen who had partaken of the education of a child of rank, and accompanied him in his studies or in the field: this was a martial and holy institution, but it was soon abused; as were the nocturnal feasts and orgies.

The troop of lovers instituted by Laïus, was an invincible corps of young warriors engaged by oath, mutually to lay down their lives for one another; and, perhaps, never had ancient discipline any thing more grand and useful.

Sextus Empiricus and others may talk as long as they please of pederasty being recommended by the laws of Persia. Let them quote the text of the law, and even shew the Persian code, yet will I not believe it; I will say it is not true, by reason of its being impossible. I do aver that it is not in human nature to make a law contradictory and injurious to nature; a law which, if literally kept to, would put an end to the human species. The thing is, scandalous customs being connived at, are often mistaken for the laws of a country. Sextus Empiricus, doubting of every thing, might as well doubt of this jurisprudence. If living in our days he had seen two or three young jesuits fondling some scholars, could he from thence say that this sport was permitted them by the constitutions of Ignatius Loyola ?

The

The love of boys was so common at Rome, that no punishment was thought of for a foolery into which every body run headlong. Octavius Augustus, that sensualist, that cowardly murderer, dared to banish Ovid, at the same time that he was very well pleased with Virgil's singing the beauty and flights of Alexis, and Horaces's making little odes for Ligurinus. Still the old Scantinian law against pederasty was in force: the Emperor Philip revived it, and caused the boys. who followed that trade to be driven. out of Rome. In a word, I cannot think that ever there was a policed nation, where the laws were contrary to morality.

SELF-LOVE.

A BEGGAR, about the skirts of Madrid, used to ask alms with great dignity: one passing by said to him, Are not you ashamed to follow this scandalous trade, you who are able to work ? Sir, answered the beggar, I ask you for money and not for advice; then turned his back upon him with all the stateliness of a Castilian.

Don

was a lofty beggar indeed, his vanity soon took pet. He could ask alms out of self-love; and from another kind of self-love, would not bear reproof.

A missionary in India met a facquier loaded with chains, as bare as an ape, lying on his belly, while his countryman, at his request, was whipping him for his sins, and at the same time dropping him some farthings. What self-denial is this, what abasement, said one of the spectators.

R

Self